Raquel – An Exceptional Wrestler From Seattle!

Raquel from Seattle is a female submission wrestler for the ages.

There are some submission wrestlers, who even if only for a small window of time, could be crowned the official champion of their time period.

Now I know we could argue this over drinks but some that come to mind are Beatrice Goffin, her protégé Nadege, Robin of Southern California, Lisa Marie from New Zealand (yes ever so brief), the legendary Helen Von Mott, Renee from The Haven, Petra, Luzia and Hannah of DWW fame, Sable of the London Wrestling Studio stable, Liz Lightspeed and more.

Some of the current challengers to the throne are Ariel, Kara and Isamar out of San Jose.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that all on this list would be perennial champions or even a year-long champion but after defeating all of the competitors they are supposed to defeat, with just one upset victory over the current champion, they could steal the crown.

The challenge with a discussion like this is that until the corporations become involved in sponsoring women’s submission wrestling in the long term, due to the lack of worldwide organization, cooperation and merging, any interchange about this subject has to stay in the “unofficial champion” category.

That being the case, any credible conversation about champions must include Raquel.

Raquel hails from Seattle Washington and over the years has fought and soundly defeated some of the biggest and baddest women in the submission wrestling world. The beauty of her wrestling imagery is timeless.

Once we discover how to appreciate the timeless values in our daily experiences; we can enjoy the best things in life.
……………..Jerome K. Jerome

Years ago when I read she was going up against super star Kristie Etzold in a match produced by a south Florida wrestling company, I salivated for a tough match. What I witnessed instead was total domination by Raquel. I thought she had a chance to win, but not like that.

In her own stable, she defeated the sturdy and widely respected Fuchsia but due to the size differential, that was not unexpected. Some would say that is a sister fight where they don’t go 100 percent so if you see that as an issue you should watch her wrestle always tough VeVe Lane. You can even find some of her older matches against DWW stars Elena and Edita. Traveling to wrestle against the DWW girls in the 1990’s was a profile in courage.

Here is what others are saying about Raquel.

This testimonial is found at a top female wrestler listing site, wb270.com.

“It is my honor and pleasure to be one of the first people to wrestle Raquel upon her return from retirement and to welcome her back. For those of us that have been around this game for a long time, Raquel was one of the elite wrestlers of the 90’s. Many considered her the best wrestler on the planet. She was truly one of the real superstars of this sport.  Not only was Raquel an incredible athlete, she had an engaging energetic personality that could light up a room AND she was knock out gorgeous.

She was a well-known personality that helped get the whole concept of WB270 going in the early days and then she just kinda fell off the planet. She has a huge fan base out there. Just check out the grainy video of her sparring with Fuchsia.  It has generated over 200,000 hits on YouTube and when you read through the comments (at least the serious ones) you can see the interest and passion for her that still exist ten years later.

I wrestled Raquel back in the late 90’s.  At the time I was about 200 lbs., decent shape, and had previous successful wrestling experience in high school and a little bit of college.  I went to the state tournament twice and won about 90% of my matches.  I also seek out the best female wrestlers I can find – Kasie Cavanaugh, Myra, and Helen Von Mott to name just a few.

One of the things I like about Raquel is she will do any type of wrestling. Not being a submission wrestler, I asked if she would wrestle collegiate style and she was happy to oblige.

For the next fifteen minutes I spent all of my energy trying to stay off of my back.  She was never able to turn me to my back. I consider myself a good wrestler and was able to counter her moves, but let me tell you I could do literally nothing. It took all my energy to keep from being pinned. With the exception of one other male wrestler, I have never had anyone put that type of pressure on me and remember I had a 70 pound weight difference,  The amount of pure physical strength she can exert seems impossible.

Raquel had perfect balance. I like to use resistance and the other person’s momentum to gain control, but Raquel never gave you anything to work with. She was solid as a rock.”

This fciwomenswrestling.com writer can add the summary of my own experience watching Raquel. I have never seen her give a bad performance. Never.  Interestingly like so many extremely good female wrestlers including Sybil Starr (see article FCI Sybil Starr Shines!!) she could have been far more popular but seemed content to fly under the radar.

In her own words she says, “”Hey everyone this is Raquel and I wanted to let everyone know that I am coming out of retirement to get back into some competition wrestling and for those of you who may think that my skills may be a little rusty I am as polished as I have ever been.  I have honed my skills and trained for over a year with my coach (a 3 time world champion wrestler). I am also currently training in the Art of Brazilian Jujitsu, so for any of you who think I may have lost a step I would challenge you to test me and find out.”

Female Competition International is working feverishly to orchestrate a process where the graduates from the collegiate female freestyle wrestling world will eventually meet the stars like Raquel of the women’s submission world. Now having read a testimonial that Raquel is open to competing in various styles of wrestling, our excitement is growing.

Some synonyms for “unofficial” are unconfirmed, unauthenticated, uncorroborated, unsubstantiated, unsanctioned and off the record to name a few.

So much for synonyms.

When it comes to the stellar wrestling skills and internal makeup of Raquel from Seattle, you can make it official.

She could be a champion in any time period

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Sources: wb270.com, youtube.com, fciwomenswrestling.com, brainyquote.com. Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons.